Abstract
Reciprocity and mutuality represent phenomena intensively studied both in linguistics and in formal semantics. Here we focus on inherently reciprocal predicates, i.e., predicates bearing the feature of mutuality in their lexical meaning.
While there is a consensus generally accepted by linguists that such predicates most likely exist in all natural languages, a reliable criterion defining this type of predicates is still missing. The usual definition - adopted from formal semantics - appears to be too strong for natural language predicates, leading to the contraintuitive conclusion that such predicates do not exist at all.
Here, inspired by Gleitman and Partee (2022), we redefine the criterion. The proposed weaker definition allows us to group predicates of a natural language in a more appropriate way, reflecting their syntactic behavior and thus enabling their adequate lexicographic description.